Save Iraq's Academics

We recently received the following message, an "urgent global appeal to save Iraq's academics." We have signed the petition and hope you will consider doing likewise.

Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, EditorsCTheory

17 January 2006

Dear colleague,

http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ this week launches a global petition and call for action in defence
of Iraq's educators, over 250 of which have been assassinated since 2003 with many thousands more fleeing for their lives. This appeal speaks not only
to other academics, but all those who understand that education is the foundation of sovereignty and justice.

The petition below is addressed to the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions at the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) in Geneva. It is an integral part of a coordinated action aimed at providing the special rapporteur with
justification for organising an immediate fact-finding country visit to Iraq.

We invite you to read and sign this petition and ask for your help in forwarding this appeal to friends and colleagues. Your signature counts.

Urgent appeal to save Iraq's Academics

A little known aspect of the tragedy engulfing Iraq is the systematic liquidation of the country's academics. Even according to conservative
estimates, over 250 educators have been assassinated, and many hundreds more have disappeared. With thousands fleeing the country in fear for their
lives, not only is Iraq undergoing a major brain drain, the secular middle class - which has refused to be co-opted by the US occupation - is being
decimated, with far-reaching consequences for the future of Iraq.

Already on July 14, 2004, veteran correspondent Robert Fisk reported from Iraq that: "University staff suspect that there is a campaign to strip
Iraq of its academics, to complete the destruction of Iraq's cultural identity which began when the American army entered Baghdad."

The wave of assassinations appears non-partisan and non-sectarian, targeting women as well as men, and is countrywide. It is indiscriminate of
expertise: professors of geography, history and Arabic literature as well as science are among the dead. Not one individual has been apprehended in
connection with these assassinations.

According to the United Nations University, some 84 per cent of Iraq's institutions of higher education have already been burnt, looted or
destroyed. Iraq's educational system used to be among the best in the region; one of the country's most important assets was its well-educated
people.

This situation is a mirror of the occupation as a whole: a catastrophe of staggering proportions unfolding in a climate of criminal disregard. As
an occupying power, and under international humanitarian law, final responsibility for protecting Iraqi citizens, including academics, lies with the
United States.

With this petition we want to break the silence.

We appeal to organisations which work to enforce or defend international humanitarian law to put these crimes on the agenda.

We request that an independent international investigation be launched immediately to probe these extrajudicial killings. This investigation
should also examine the issue of responsibility to clearly identify who is accountable for this state of affairs. We appeal to the special rapporteur
on summary executions at UNHCHR in Geneva.

This petition was launched by the BRussells Tribunal and is already endorsed by CEOSI (Spain), the Portuguese hearing of the WTI, Iraktribunal.de
(Germany), the Swedish Antiwar committee, the IAC (USA), the International Association of Middle East Studies (IAMES), the German Middle East Studies
Association (DAVO) and the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies (EURAMES), and several personalities, including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn,
Tony Benn, Eduardo Galeano, John Pilger and Michael Parenti. See the http://www.brusselstribunal.org/AcademicsPetitionList.htm.